


Paternal Privilege

by fire_and_a_rose



Series: The Force of Family [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi - Fandom, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Anakin calls dibs, Gen, because SPOILER is a scene stealer, giftfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 20:17:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13038645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fire_and_a_rose/pseuds/fire_and_a_rose
Summary: Anakin.  Luke.  An island.  A tree.  Fire.  An alternate version of a scene in The Last Jedi, because a father has both the duty and the right to be the one to care for his son.





	Paternal Privilege

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Blair/Analise](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Blair%2FAnalise).



> Written for Blair/Analise--and to some extent for my own father, too, who's carried more burdens for me than I'll ever know.
> 
> At least one more story, Filial Forgiveness, involving Anakin and Leia post-TLJ is coming.
> 
> Comments help my muse. Just Saying. ;)

Luke almost jerks to a stop when he senses the presence behind, his hand instantly tightening around the flare.  
  
"If you want a father-son chat," he says harshly, not turning around, "you’ll have to wait."  
  
"I’ve been waiting for years," Anakin says back, head cocked slightly to the side as he looks at his son’s back. "You haven’t let me in since the temple on Yavin fell." _Or anything else._  
  
"I didn’t this time, either!" It’s almost snarled as Luke spins around. "You weren’t invited!"  
  
"I know. Master Yoda was going to come. But I _am_ ," and his voice is wry as he says the same words he said so long ago, when his son was so much younger and carried so much less pain, "your father. I called first shot."  
  
"Very funny. Well, stay for the show, because _I’m_ finishing what you started! The Jedi, the tree, the texts—I’m burning it all down, and _I’ll_ make sure nothing’s left!" Maybe it’s because Anakin _is_ his father that Luke lets himself yell it so loudly and angrily before turning and storming up the ancient steps, angry enough he almost loses his balance on one that’s both wet and been worn smooth by the millennia.  
  
Except he can’t do it.  
  
He was more than ready to do it just a heartbeat again, and now that he’s at the tree—  
  
Luke can’t.  
  
Maybe because he _is_ his father’s son. He’s struggled so long to be Anakin’s instead of Vader’s. Finishing the Jedi—  
  
There’s a crack of thunder, a blinding white flash of lightning, and the choice is taken from him.  
  
Luke doesn’t know where the flare went to. He’s not even sure how he ended up sitting on the ground by his father, Anakin crouching slowly next to him. After a moment, the father puts his hand (a hand that lacks any weight and carries in it all the love and comfort Luke’s always been desperate for within it) onto his son’s shoulder.  
  
"I’m your father," Anakin repeats quietly. "And that means that any burden I can take from you, protect you from carrying, I will. Always." He doesn’t say, _I’m so sorry, I will always be sorry, that you carried so many in life I couldn’t protect you from, that I **caused**_ , but he doesn’t need to.  
  
Luke breathes heavily for several moments, before saying quietly, "So. I was right. It is time."  
  
Anakin sighs and settles onto the ground next to him. "You were right…for the wrong reasons."  
  
Even a Force ghost can feel his heart hurt, and Anakin’s does when Luke looks at him in confusion.  
  
Despite the beard and greying hair, his son can still look so young.  
  
"You told Rey," Anakin says after a moment of searching for the words, "that the Jedi were a religion. We never were supposed to be…but we ended up like one. A religion that was so concerned about the rituals—the rules, the ceremony, the trappings—that we allowed ourselves to be blinded from seeing what all of those things had been made to honor."  
  
"But—the sacred texts—"  
  
"Luke," and his voice is wry, "you’re really setting it up for me to ask if you _actually_ did your homework and read all of them."  
  
Luke gapes before grasping for words. "I—well, mostly—"  
  
"Yeah, I know. And _I_ had to also read the commentary books Jedi sages wrote _about_ them."  
  
Luke can’t help wincing at that, and Anakin smiles gently.  
  
"Luke, you were a Jedi long before you found this place or those books. You have so much of your mother in you, and she carried in her all the things a Jedi needed to know and be without being even slightly Force sensitive. The things the books tried to explain are what matter, not the books themselves. She knew them. So does Rey." _And you._ "Everything else is just details." After a pause, he adds, "Well. Maybe not the parts about how to build lightsabers," and it was worth it, because it makes his son snort a laugh.  
  
Luke’s silent for several minutes as bits of ashes are blown onto him and through Anakin. When he speaks again, he does so slowly, gaze focused on his father’s eyes.  
  
"Am I right that it’s time for something else, too?"  
  
Anakin looks at him for a second and then reaches to gently touch his son’s face.  
  
"I wish you weren’t."  
  
Luke nods slowly before turning his head to look back at the tree.  
  
"Will you stay with me through it?" he finally asks his father.  
  
This time, he can feel the hand that settles on his shoulder because he lets himself. Lets his father back in, and the rest of the Force with him.  
  
He isn’t sure how he’s lived without it, and maybe he _hasn’t_ lived, only existed.  
  
So he’ll have to make the rest of his life, however long or little it is, count, Luke thinks as he hears Anakin say, "I’ll be here every moment."  
  
Anakin doesn’t say, _I always have been_ : Luke hears that anyway, too.  
  
Luke closes his eyes, feels his father’s hand and sees his sister’s face. For just an instant, there and gone, he feels lips pressed to his forehead by the mother he never knew and yet is so much like.  
  
He nods.  
  
Father and son stay sitting together until the last of the embers go out.  
  
And then the two Jedi get to work.


End file.
